Taking a Deep Breath

Welcome back, dear friends.

It's been two weeks since I checked in with my public journal of Life in Trump's America. Last weekend my husband and I went away to La La Land, where we took in some comedy, some bad ass women's wrestling, and generally avoided anything news-related.

It was great, but in the end the real world caught up to us. It does tend to do that.

I've had a lot of thoughts since returning to Real Life, and believe it or not, not *all* of them have been about the obnoxious Orange One who now inhabits the White House. Some of them have been about chocolate, for instance, and others have been about wrestling.

Indulge me in a divergent train of thought for a moment, reader. Is it weird that at the same time our nation is facing a crisis, one pillar of which is about reality itself, professional wrestling is experiencing a much-heralded revolution? Professional wrestling, an athletic endeavor whose detractors deride as being a "fake sport," is about spectacle and storytelling and seeks to wring emotions out of its followers. 

Professional wrestling is also a big business, and its billionaire administrators have ties to the White House and the Orange One himself. Linda McMahon, wife of WWE owner Vince McMahon sits on Trump's cabinet as Secretary of the Small Business Administration.

President Trump loves to rail publicly against what he calls the "Fake News Media." A very real argument can be made that he and his administration seek to shape public opinion and push policy agendas via the creation of spectacles and sowing fear and discord in our citizenry.

Is that weird? Or am I simply, as is my wont, overthinking this? Is there a connection or am I nuts?

It's weird. Anyhow. Sorry for the digression. 

Actually, no. I'm not sorry, and frankly that wasn't much of a digression. Because the rapidly vanishing distinction between what's fake and what's real--between surreality and *actual* reality--is a central problem to life in Trump's America. I'm no longer talking about the twin rise of professional wrestling and the Trump administration. I'm talking about EVERYTHING about life now. All of it.

Our President last weekend made up a terrorist attack in Sweden. In the past month, his surrogates have also made up terrorist attacks in Kentucky and Georgia.

Trump constantly refers to the media as "fake," and polls that show his low approval ratings as "rigged."

All members of the GOP have taken to pretending that the millions of Americans who now routinely protest this administration are paid agitators. At a conservative conference this past week, NRA president Wayne LaPierre said: 

“Right now, we face a gathering of forces that are willing to use violence against us,” he said. “The leftist movement in this country right now is enraged. Among them, and behind them, are some of the most radical political elements there are. Anarchists, Marxists, communists, and the whole rest of the left-wing socialist brigade.”

LaPierre also noted that “many of these people hate everything America stands for,” including “democracy” and “free-market capitalism.”

All of these activists, LaPierre continued, were funded by left-wing billionaires such as George Soros, and are also “angry,” “militant,” and “willing to engage in criminal violence.”

Read the full article here. 

Friday the White House officially banned many solid, well-respected media outlets (including CNN, NYT, BBC, and more) from its press briefing, but allowed overtly biased outlets such as Breitbart to attend.

FYI: Breitbart's twitter bio is: "News, commentary, and destruction of the political/media establishment."

For comparison: the new masthead of the Washington Post, one of the outlets banned from the White House's press briefing, is Democracy Dies in Darkness.

Did I mention that Steve Bannon, Trump's chief political strategist, was until very recently editor-in-chief at Breitbart? Or that at least two other senior editors from that media outlet now serve the administration in a national security advisory capacity? (Read the Times article here.) 

I could cite many more examples of truth-bending from the Trump administration and its advocates. But I won't. Instead I will leave you with this quote from British politician and social activist Arthur Ponsonby:

When war is declared, truth is the first casualty. 

The revolution will be tweeted. Follow me: @Literarygrrrl

Two Weeks Down, An Infinty to Go?

If I had to choose five key words to describe the way I feel after lurching through Trump's first two weeks as president, I would go with:

1. Tired
2. Achy
3. Demoralized
4. Nauseous
5. Irritable

Welcome back to my public journal of Life in Trump's America! Sorry to begin with such an odious tone, but I vowed to be honest with you. I wish I could say that my 5 key words these past two weeks were motivated, self-empowered, powerful, excited, and successful, but that would be a lie and I think we both know it.

The hardest part for me (and maybe also for you) is trying to strike a workable balance between keeping up with my regular day-to-day responsibilities and staying on top of--and trying to fight--every single awful development in the Trump administration. 

So many horrendous changes happen every single day. From sunup to sundown, I'm hit with periodic waves of terrified nausea.

The good in all this, if there is any good, is the tremendous backlash Trump's administration is receiving from the American people. I am so proud of my country for not rolling over.

Congress, on the other hand...

Anyway. Just this morning it came to my attention that the USDA has removed a bunch of information about animal safety from its website. (Click here to read). The information is from the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. From the Associated Press article: 

The information is used by advocacy groups and other members of the public to look up information on commercial dog and horse breeders, some of whom have had a history of abuse. The reports included lists of animal welfare violations at those facilities and also at animal testing labs, and whether those violations have been corrected.

Nowhere does it say that the Trump administration forced USDA to do this, but that does seem in line with actions taken by the Trump administration since assuming office. 

Why do I care? My daughter is studying chemistry in college, with the goal of first working for and then (hopefully) running her own cruelty-free cosmetics company. If the government is no longer going to provide the public information on which companies are abusing animals, how can we make informed decisions? Also, it follows that if the government stops reporting on companies who abuse animals, it will likely stop (if it hasn't already) inspecting those companies to make sure animal rights laws are followed. 

And then guess what? Those laws aren't going to be followed anymore.

USDA says the public can still access the revoked information through Freedom of Information Act requests. Oh, really? I decided to test that by making a request.

Aaaaaaaannnnnnnnndddd ran into a brick wall. I will have to return to that later. I am in a considerable amount of pain and this isn't helping.

Now to go analyze the President's tweets, because that's the world we live in now.

See you next time. #Resist

Oh Shit Trump is President!

Wednesday January 25 2017

I'm really not sure how this journal is going to work.

I got the idea for this public journal a few weeks after the election night. But the idea wasn't fully formed. About all I knew for certain then--indeed, all I continue to know for certain--is that I wanted to keep a journal about living in Donald Trump's America, and that I wanted it to be public.

Forgive me for throwing up in my mouth when I typed the words "Donald Trump's America."

I expect I will use this space to vent, and to gather my courage for the continuing fight. I also want to share my experiences with you so that we can feel more connected, because I predict that the country's fractures are only going to deepen. Americans are an independent folk, and that generally serves us well, but it also works to enable an US vs. THEM mentality. The presidential campaign really ramped up that kind of rhetoric, and now that the Trump administration is installed in the White House our nation is getting a pretty clear picture of just what the government feels the official THEM look like. And how they worship. And how they vote. And who they love.

I do not intend for this journal to become a list of the horrible things that the Trump administration is doing, because there are much better sources for that kind of information. However, I do want to give you a little picture of where we are right now, in case you've been living under a rock or you're reading this from the future. (If you are reading this from the future, please tell me we make it out ok! What's it like? Do we finally get flying cars??)

Donald Trump has been president of the United States for 6 days now. Less than a week. And already things are changing. Already things are looking grim.

• Trump's administration immediately paved the way for the coming repeal of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, which provides health insurance for some 20 million people
• Trump and his press secretary Sean Spicer made overt threats to the media, insinuating that they would cut off access to the White House if they receive unfavorable coverage
• Trump and his administration continue to tell obvious and needless lies to the media and the country about such things as the size of the inauguration crowd in DC
• Trump's administration put a gag order on many federal agencies, such as the USDA, the EPA, Department of Commerce and others that states they cannot talk to the press, cannot share any information with the public, cannot make public any scientific findings, etc.
• Trump's administration froze all funding for the EPA and ordered all employees to stop working and to make no communications with anyone until further notice
• On Twitter, Trump made a threat to the city of Chicago, saying that if they didn't get their gun violence and homicide rate under control he would "send in the feds"
• The GOP is pushing through a bill with the absolutely Orwellian name of First Amendment Defense Act that would make it legal to discriminate against LGBTQ Americans on the basis of their sexuality

Remember, a WEEK AGO Barack Obama was president and America was leading the world in our efforts to combat climate change and fighting against discrimination of transgender Americans. This is nightmarish.

And this is just a teeny-tiny sample of what's going on right now. I could go on for hours. But this isn't a newspaper and you didn't come here to read a rundown of current events. This is a public journal designed to be...what?

I guess I want this to be a conversation. I want you to feel like I've taken you by the hand and am leading you through my day. Maybe we're sitting on the porch having a drink and bitching about work. I want this journal to not only give you an idea of what life looks like in Trump's America, but also what it feels like. 

So let me tell you a little about me. My name is Shana Hammaker Roy. I'm a forty year old wife and mother. I live with my husband Brandon and my college-age daughter Meredith. I am a pharmacy technician but am looking to (finally) make the move into journalism. I have lived in Austin Texas for the past four and a half years, but was born and raised in California. In between, I spent varying amounts of time living in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Tennessee. 

I'm a high school drop out with three college degrees. I owe more than I make in two years in college debt.

I've been around. I've met a lot of people. I feel like I have a unique perspective of our great nation.

And now, along with the rest of America, my life has been upended. I feel like I'm standing at the edge of a precipice and I can't see what's below me. Is it razor-sharp spikes? Is it a sea teaming with electric eels and hungry sharks? Is it sun-baked desert sand? Is it fluffy pillows?

It's probably not fluffy pillows.

Anyhow, welcome to my journey. If you're from a nation that has already struggled with autocracy and moved beyond it, please read my worries with a gentle heart. As you know, America is a young country. We're still figuring shit out. If you're in the future, I guess you know how this story ends, which is sort of weird to think about. Thanks for taking this ride with me anyway! I plan to add to this journal as often as I can, but at least twice a week. For now, see you soon and be safe!